Ethnography- Analogous Immersion

With the direct immersion experience dealing with the actual struggles faced by the individuals of whom our project is directed towards, this analogous immersion serves as a parallel to the similar struggles faced but with more relevance to peers. As explained in the immersion work, individuals are faced with the hardships of not being able to achieve certain things that may better their lives. Something analogous to this might be the school experience. Many children start school but many with different backgrounds. To parallel the situation of the individuals for our project, let us assume that we can experience the struggles of a child from a poor background in a public school.

No matter how hard the effort put in is, classwork may still and the teachers aren’t necessarily of the highest caliber to help me achieve. As a result, school might not be the biggest focal point, especially with the economic struggles of the family. As a result, activities that are easy to make quick cash might be an option to help out the family to even eat, as the direct benefits of school are hard to quantify or even see at this point. This could happen to many good kids, as they aren’t given many options to achieve highly if it is not in sports. So, selling drugs might be the quickest and easiest option to help out.

The school or police might find out and catch me. Being a child of low economic backgrounds, the penalty would be high. Expulsion from school might be a real threat and criminal charges might also be brought to the table. With this, how can one achieve? It’s not like selling drugs is where a kid like this wanted to start doing, but there aren’t many other routes or options. As a result, any goal to go to college is thrashed and even getting a job might prove very difficult. It is this cycle that can be closely mirrored to what is happening to the individuals that our project strives to help: dealing with hardships leading to dangerous options that are hard to arise from due to the economic standing.